360 Degree Feedback

360 Degree Feedback.

According to research from Affinity Health at Work and the Health and Safety Executive employees that feel free to speak their minds about their managers abilities are more likely to feel happy, healthy and stress free at work. The study which was presented at the British Psychological Society's conference in January, found that the most commonly reported cause of stress in the workplace is the relationship between an employee and their line manager. In companies where staff are involved in rating and giving feedback on their line manager's performance, stress is reduced.

No matter how open we are as managers most of our people will  find providing face to face feedback difficult. One mechanism that provides a safer environment is 360 degree feedback which has the benefit of providing wider feedback. This is a process that is structured and can be run by an external organisation which collates responses.  As a  manager you provide details of  the person you report to, people who are your peers in your organisation and people who report to you. This covers your working relationships up, down and sideways, hence the 360 degree term. Typically this also results in feedback from 8-12 people and so is reasonably comprehensive.  The collated results can give a manager a real insight into how their colleagues perceive them and provide very useful feedback without damaging relationships.   Some specialist organisations  provide these as web based questionnaires which reduces the administration and speeds up the process.


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Leadership - Performance Appraisal Disaster

Here are some more great tips for anyone wanting to progress in leadership. Recognise these pitfalls and commit to doing something different in your organisation! Leadership is about leading people. Performance appraisals (performance reviews) are a great tool to help with this task.

Studies conclude that most performance appraisals are an abysmal failure, leading workers to view HR Departments as failures as well.

A 2005 survey of 48,012 employees, managers and CEOs in 126 companies found that only 13 percent of employees and managers – and only 6 percent of CEOs – believe that their performance appraisals are useful. In addition, an astounding 88 percent of respondents said that their current performance appraisal system negatively impacts how they view their HR department. Here are some excerpts from a news release about this study:

• Only 18 percent of people in the survey said that their performance appraisal system effectively differentiates between high and low performers.

• 42 percent of respondents said that the comments they receive from their managers on their performance appraisals are too generic.

• Only 13 percent of employees believe that their manager has an effective method for tracking and recording performance-related events and items.

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